Trick or Vote: The Best Way on the Best Day

The author prepares for Trick or Vote in 2007

Pop Quiz Time:

1. What is the single most effective way to mobilize voters?
   a) Visibilities
   b) Sitting on a couch and bitching
   c) Talking to ‘em face-to-face
2. What holiday always immediately precedes Election Day and has a built-in tradition of door-knocking?
   a) Halloween
   b) The 4th of July
   c) Festivus
3. What does everyone love?
   a) Rick Rolling
   b) Costumes!
   c) Voting
   d) All of the above

All of us who work in the field of youth engagement face big competition. The biggest competition we face – for volunteers, for attention – is not from one another’s organizations either. It’s from the Wii (which is sweet) and the bar scene and friends and loved ones. Our biggest challenge is overcoming that noise and building a politics that is fun and exciting and relevant to people’s lives.

That’s what makes Trick or VoteTM so freaking sweet. It’s the Best Way on the Best Day.

It’s actually such a sweet idea it doesn’t even really need an explanation. But here it is in a nutshell: Get some people who are a bit too old to trick or treat (go as young as high school and as old as the retirement home for your recruitment), rally ‘em in costume, meet in a centralized location, train these folks to canvass effectively, and knock some doors.

In short, we combine a cultural more (knock doors on Halloween) with hard-minded political research (knocking doors is an effective voter mobilization tool).

The result?

• More volunteers. In Portland in 2004, 850 canvassers assembled for the largest mass canvass in the history of the state. By all accounts, this year will be even bigger.
• More virgin volunteers. Out of that same crowd in Portland, more than one-in-three were first-time political volunteers who came out of the woodwork for a program well-suited to help our fellow citizens lose their voter virginity.
• More conversations. On Halloween evening, people are home – either waiting for trick-or-treaters or getting ready for their parties. They’re even prepared to open the door. And they’re definitely ready to engage in a conversation. All of which means that we don’t just hit more doors, we hit more doors in a more effective manner.
• More voters. Do the math -- more canvassers, more conversations, and more doors? More people are hitting the polls.

The Bus Federation wants to take Trick or VoteTM national this year – and we can do it with your help. If you’re part of a local or national organization that is serious about doing Trick or VoteTM, get in touch soon so we can coordinate our efforts. Contact Alex Aronson at the Oregon Bus Project @ 503-233-3018.

Just looking for a project for the fall and think you could pull off a kick-ass Trick or Vote in your hometown? Or even just want to assemble 15 of your closest friends and friends-of-friends and friendly-friends-of-friends’-friends and go hit some doors? Drop us a line. I swear to you, you’ll be glad you did.

Major props, by the way, to our friends at the Bus for this innovative program -- Trick or Vote is their brainchild.

Answers to the pop quiz: 1-b, 2-c, 3-a

Matt Singer is the CEO of Forward Montana, dedicated to training, mobilizing, and electing a new generation of progressive leaders. Forward Montana is a charter (get it?) organization of the Bus Federation.